Life is Not About How Beautiful I Am

I am old and learning a lot of things now that would have been nice to have known, before, but I'm glad they are happening at all!! LOL

There is nothing wrong with being beautiful, unless it is the only pair of glasses you use to see yourself or others. If your self worth is based on your degree of beauty, or lack of it, don't look now, but you are missing the boat. Degrees are comparisons. One is more, the other is less. You are always going to be more beautiful than some, and less beautiful, than others. So what? This narrow and distorted focus is not what life is about.

There have been times when I felt beautiful, and times when I was convinced that I was absolutely unattractive, for this, or that, reason -- one of them being "fat." Cultural beauty is based on swim suit models, magazines, fashion, and makeup. Advertising. Someone else's manufactured opinion, used to get you to feel an emotion that results in their selling you a product. Flimsy, but extremely effective manipulation based on both "envy" and "belief."

"Beauty is only skin deep, but ugly is to the bone."

So why am I thinking about this? A friend shared a blog post about a young mother who wants to set a good example for her little daughters so she has started saying, "I'm beautiful" in front of them in the hopes that they will say the same things about themselves. She does not believe what she is saying inside herself, but is grabbing at this straw in hopes that she can help her daughters to not go through what she went through.

She believes she is modeling the appropriate thing to them and is to be commended because she really wants to be a good Mom to her girls. I hope this works for her and her girls. I have a feeling it may backfire, though, because she is not telling them the truth about how she feels about herself. There was a clue in her writing that her little girls recognized her out-of-character behavior and falsehood. So rather than learning to say, "I'm beautiful", they are learning that "making stuff up" is appropriate behavior.

Children often see some things more clearly than adults think they do. They reacted by looking at her strangely... and that was the clue that something went through their heads. They had a thought or made a decision about what they saw in their mother. I remember doing the same thing when I was very very young.

I can only speak from my own experience of having the view of myself that I was ugly, having often been told so by my older brothers -- and others. I believed them. Believing them means that I took their words about me and internalized them as if they were the truth. They became my own words about me. Their, "Your're so ugly..." statements got transformed into very painful "I'm so ugly...." statements inside myself. I'm not blaming them. I truly believe that if they had really known how that affected me, they would not have done it. But children, and adults, can sometimes be very cruel. Those feelings still creep up from time to time, but, I'm no longer concerned about them, because I have learned something better. I have learned the truth.

When I look at young women, young mothers, and see that they are entangled in a negative self image and worried that they might pass that on to their daughters, I want to reach out and say, "Don't do that," as if I could stop their worrying, somehow, and also help them and their little girls.

Here's an idea that I think might work better and I noticed it in the movie called "The Help": "You is kind, you is smart, you is important" -- and the little girl repeated back, "You is kind, you is smart, you is important."

I loved it because I had had something similar taught to me, only, much later in life, by God, who said to me, "You are loved, and you are worthwhile."  I repeated the words back in personal form, "I am loved, and I am worthwhile" and my life changed.

We cannot make up a self image. We already have one. We also don't know who we are - until - we know who God is, and I very firmly believe that. Once I began to understand who God is, I began to have a more accurate understanding of who of I am. He changes me. We also cannot make up a self image for someone else, but we can certainly begin planting good things in the soil -- theirs and ours.

Even now, there is a man at church, who will sometimes shake my hand and say to me, "You're a blessing" -- and guess what? For a while, I feel like a blessing!! For a moment, I am a blessing. We are all like that. We women seem to unconsciously think about ourselves, the way that others speak to us, about us. That is also why emotional abuse is so effective. If we listen to repeated positive, or negative, statements about us, we begin to believe there must be some truth in them whether there really is or not. So we need to be sure we are getting and believing accurate information about us and giving the same to our girls. And who better to get accurate information about us, than from God, our Creator? The God who knows us better than we do ourselves, and loves us, anyway.

That may be why there is so much relationship teaching in the church that "Women need love," and "Men need respect."   Actually we all need both of these things, but a woman can go a long time on the knowledge that someone loves her. If I know that God loves me.... I don't actually crave to have someone else say that to me. I like it and enjoy it, but don't need it. I have God's love and that is enough -- that is my self image: I am loved. The more I know God, the more I know myself. Don't get me wrong, I often forget and have to be reminded -- but that is the human condition. We are forgetful and need to be reminded. So, I remind myself as often as I realize I need it.

But, for this young mother to simply and suddenly start staying out loud, "I'm beautiful," when she does not really believe it is true, will ring false inside herself, and also inside her children. If that young mother began to know, understand, and accept God's love for her, her own self image would truly begin to change. Then she would no longer have to worry that she is passing on something bad to her daughters. Then, if she felt the need to say, "I am beautiful," because God loves her, which makes her beautiful, her words would ring true inside herself, and her children. I doubt she would need to say that, though, because the words, "I am loved" said inside herself, are so much more powerful -- because they are the truth.

I suggest that she needs to start planting the seeds of God's love in her girls. I think she should be saying things like, "Jesus loves you, and you are beautiful, and intelligent," to her daughters at the appropriate times. (Not as a sort of mindless "mantra" but when the situation calls for it.) She should be saying, "You are loved, and you are worthwhile" to her girls when they need encouragement. I saw the young author say things about her daughters in her post that she needs to be telling them out loud.

If she models sincere honesty and kindness to them, and teaches them what God is like, they will admire her and want to copy her. If she tells them that they are beautiful and responsible, they will believe her and say they are beautiful and responsible to themselves. The best window of time for this is when they are very young -- but it will work at any age, really. If done when young, they won't have to grow through so much pain. They will have other pains, but not that one, which can be so debilitating.

Help them to be strong in Christ. Tell them, "Jesus loves you." Tell them, "I love you." Tell them "You are loved" and they will know they are beautiful, just as they are -- to the bone. Being beautiful means being loved by God. Nothing can replace that particular glow!!

Jesus loves you.
You are loved.
You are worthwhile.
You are beautiful and responsible.
You are kind.
You are smart.
You are important.
You are a good girl (or boy.)
You are a blessing!!

Praise the Lord!! God is good! God is holy! God is love! God is infinite!

If you really want to begin to know God better, ask Him to show you what you need to know about Him. He knows what you need and will show you.

For those who need some intellectual type spiritual inspiration I also recommend studying Volumes one and two of A.W. Tozer's books: "The Attributes of God." You can find both of these titles at Amazon.com, and other places where Christian literature is sold.

Be back soon,

Marcia


Here is the blog post, in case you would like to read it for yourself, http://offbeatfamilies.com/2012/11/telling-daughters-im-beautiful